NoirFemme

Based on the wording of my email, it looks like there are four outcomes: awardees, alternates, honorable mentions, and rejections. So if you're, say, number 6 on the alternate list, and only five awardees out of the 60 decline the fellowship, you'll be placed on the honorable mention list.

I still have a visit to do next week. I'm leaning towards that school because it's in a major city with relevant archives, it's top ranked, has lots of funding, and I can take coursework in the sub-sub-fields in which I am interested. Yet, the other school, while not ranked very high nor having graduate programs in my s-s-fs, has offered a fellowship that aligns with my public history interests and doesn't require teaching. And it's in a central location to lots of major cities with relevant archives. (Still on the waitlist for a very highly ranked program, but I'm on the fence about accepting if I did get in, because the funding isn't as stellar as the school's reputation) The other big issue with making a decision is that both programs are in two different disciplines. I have to decide which methodologies are best for the same research questions. :/

I got placed on an alternate list, with the possibility of getting an Honorable Mention if awardees don't decline the award. First year (well...first year this fall), African American History.

First, it's not a sentiment it's a fact. Secondly, if I'm not mistaken, the list is broken into sub-fields. And if you're in your field, you know, and others know, the prestige and merits of potential programs to which you will apply. When I was forming my list last year, my adviser knew which programs to cross off and which programs to which I should apply that I had no idea existed. When I had the opportunity to visit a campus, a prospective adviser looked at my SOP and told me where she saw me fitting in based on my research and also the faculty. Sure, most are going to try HYP just to see if they can get the golden ticket, but if you have an excellent adviser, talk to other students, and do your own research, you know the programs to which you should apply. This list is a starting point for people who don't even know if they can aim that high.

Maybe the rankings are garbage (whatever is defined as garbage), but as a first-gen, low-income, nontraditional student of color, the satisfaction of being accepted into a highly-ranked program is considerable. And obtaining a degree from a highly-ranked program gives us POC students a boost when our presence in academia and our credentials are often marginalized, undermined, and viewed with skepticism.

You're welcome. If oral history and documentary is vital to your work, Option B sounds great. But since NYC and Philadelphia aren't drastically far apart, could you still use the resources and/or collaborate with researchers at Option B while attending Option A?

As someone who is musing over the same dilemma, I say to ask yourself if your #1 dream position is to be a public historian--meaning, curator, historical consultant, corporate historian, etc. Or, if your goal is to be a professor of history, who could also teach public history and be involved in local projects wherever you end up teaching. If it's the latter, choose Option A, but also look around the school and region for public history opportunities, and attend/publish public history stuff. If the former, I'd choose Option B. From what I've experienced, I don't think that public history will ever be on "equal" footing with traditional history, because it's long been viewed as a back-up plan for people who can't get a TT job. And TT job placement is how departments--and students and admins--gauge their reputation.

Seriously. This is going to be what future cycles take from the 2017 thread? Maybe some of the veterans need to chill if they can't interact with new people with some grace.

Definitely. I'm over it right now lol. On to getting excited about where I'll be this fall!

What do you want to do? Do you already have museum and/or gallery experience? The art and museum world is tough to get into and is often underpaid (or unpaid), and degree programs geared towards the field do not guarantee you will be flush with job opportunities. Museum degrees are also expensive, and if you're going to be coming out of the program with substantial debt, you ought to be sure you've accumulated enough experience in exactly what you want to do before you finish the degree. Another thing is that they tend to be broad in scope rather than preparing students for one department (like registrar, curator, conservation, education, management, etc), so when you start applying for jobs, if you didn't only work with collections or only work with nonprofit development, your degree is somewhat meaningless if jobs are asking for specific experience. One last thing to think about: curators--especially in the art museum world--are expected to have specialized knowledge of a particular type of art. For example, a curator of Chinese art has both extensive experience and knowledge of Chinese history and culture + curation training. Museum educators are expected to be professionals with teaching experience and/or education degrees + museum studies degree. If these programs are general rather than specific, then that's probably what is meant when they're described as "not very academic." If your heart is set on entering the museum profession, I would recommend getting a job, internship, or volunteer position as you get your degree.

TKO from Yale. Struck out with three of the four American Studies programs to which I applied. :-/ Not devastated like I would have been a few weeks ago, but a tad exasperated/frustrated because there's no way of knowing what AMST programs want. Congrats to those who did get in to the top programs.

To get OT a bit, could it be possible that the decline is because the forum isn't as anonymous as it once was? In the year I've been here, I've seen more than one post warning that sharing the 411 or talking about your applications isn't the best idea because you don't know who's lurking in the threads. Another thing I've seen (in the history forum in particular) is telling people who come to vent or express their sadness over rejection that it means they're not cut out for grad school. Maybe TGC is outlasting its usefulness.

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James

All I can say is the cliched "It ain't over until you say it's over." After all, the applications for the 2018-19 cycle open up in August/September. That's only 5-6 months away. In the meantime, you can beef up your CV by getting involved in the history field and your specialty just in case the weakness in your application is not being up to date with the conversation. Hop on Twitter and talk to #twitterstorians; volunteer at local academic conferences; attend talks at local universities; pitch articles to historical society newsletters; etc. While I think my SOP and writing sample are pretty solid--and unexpectedly about things going on in my subfield right now--my CV impressed my POIs with the depth and breadth of my involvement with history as a practice. Overall, my advisers say that rejections can be arbitrary--what if one of my LOR writers was hated by a faculty member on the adcomm?--but that once you get in and meet students from places that rejected you, you're probably going to understand why you were rejected (methods differed, concept of history differed, and so on).

Here's the thing--what more can anyone say except "I know how you feel", "it's not over until it's over", "try again next year", "[insert story of adversity and what changed]"?? I've seen you post about your personal life over and over again in this thread and the one you started about 30+ year old applicants. Everyone has given you sympathy with every post. I spent a full day crying over a rejection that really really sucked because, as I said, I worked hard despite having so many odds stacked against me. And honestly, from my perspective, I'm a little jealous you have a MA--a lot of the obstacles I've had to overcome to get to this point would have been a less difficult to jump over if I'd finished my BA a long time ago and was applying right now with an advanced degree. I basically crammed the professional training most get at the master's level and finishing a BA into the past three years. So I was pissed at not getting into the program I wanted the most and busted my ass to prepare for. My mom and faculty advisers commiserated with my disappointment, but it's not like they could call the DGS and demand I be admitted!! And on a non-academic topic, I dreamed of being a published author. One year I finally lucked out on getting an agent and a small book deal...and then I couldn't seem to sell another piece of writing. Every rejection was "sorry, we already have stories/articles with this topic." It was devastating and demoralizing. I stopped writing for two years and foolishly dropped my supportive agent out of the assumption that they didn't know what they were doing. And then recently, I suffered the painful realization that I took myself out of the game, not the industry. I only hurt myself by quitting, not all of the editors who rejected my work. I could have written multiple stories during the two year hiatus and at least had a better chance of selling if I kept submitting. You can't sell a book that doesn't exist (unless you're a celebrity). If the PhD is your dream, then do it. But if you see way more obstacles and difficulties than success in its pursuit, maybe the universe is giving you a sign to either reassess your purpose/goals or reconfigure your life. Because the house buying thing seems like you want a settled life--grad school doesn't seem very settled to me (what are you going to do in 5-7 years if the postdocs or TT jobs you want/get hired for are far away from where you're making a home?). If it's teaching and research you're keen to do, why not look for those types of jobs right now? Or get a postgraduate certificate?

Well, I'm going from undergrad to graduate school--at 30. And I worked in retail for most of the 7-8 years between high school and my associate's degree. Perhaps the concern and risk is that a decade out of the field is like a lifetime in academia--methoodologies, fields, theories, etc shift--and your application might not have shown admissions commitees that you can jump back into your geographic/temporal field as it appears today. And/or, it's the dreaded job market: maybe your topic/method was pretty healthy five years ago, but the jobs have shifted to other topics and your application didn't show you could apply new lenses to freshen up your topic for future placement. All this to say that I know what you're feeling about time and rejection. I worked myself to the bone during my return to undergrad, desperate to make up for lost time. I've gotten two excellent acceptances for my efforts, but wrecked my health...heh. If it's a no across the board () I would say to try again later this year, but use the months in between to develop yourself as a present day historian of XYZ topic. Oh, and another thing that might have prejudiced them against you is how you explained the gap between the MA and PhD. It sounds very "gendered" for lack of a better word. This may be 2017, but women still don't have the benefit of the doubt that caretaking won't make them quit jobs or drop out of school. I didn't mention anything about my gaps in education in my SOPs. One school did ask for an accounting of this time, but I worded it to show that I was still working through my research interests in various ways.

I don't think it's a trap, but there's a culture disconnect (well, throughout all of academia) that is rarely talked about. Not just blue collar/white collar, but how to operate in a system that isn't like working at a regular 9-5 or in retail or whatever. I've had to deal with a few issues you've dealt with and recognized that I didn't know the game beforehand in order to make better decisions for myself and my academic interests. Since you're already in there, you have to suck it up and learn the game for your future.

As I reiterate: I assume you're not going to spend your time only in your immediate area of LA. There are important events, sites, and places to attend across the region that makes relying on public transportation unreasonable. But I suppose my perspective is shaded by my position in the cultural sector--I wouldn't be able to work and study in this field if I couldn't get around on my own.

Tbh, unless you're building the platforms, you'll never own your own online content free and clear. What about the scholars using Twitter for networking and livetweeting conferences? Twitter isn't a nonprofit organization. Forbes, the source of the article, isn't nonprofit either--in fact, I'm certain the professor was paid for her piece, but Forbes.com is going to profit for a long time from her intellectual property from the clicks on the article link and ad impressions on the page. All this is to say that open access requires somebody's cash to start up, and someone will always profit from the free information that drives visitors to the site. If this doesn't sit well with you, then the next logical choice is to set up a personal/academic website to control your digital footprint and SEO.

What are the cons? As already said above me, it's important to control your online narrative.

I don't think it's rough, I think--I know it's true for me--that we underestimated how stiff the competition is for AMST. I realized we're not only competing against applicants from other top schools, but applicants from English, History, Communications, Sociology, Music, and a whole host of other disciplines. Coupled with the fact that there are more aspiring AMST grad students than there are AMST undergrad programs in the country, and...yeah...bloodbath on the results board. After licking my wounds a bit and getting distracted by a bunch of midterms (blech), I recognized that I am grateful to have the acceptances I do have--and that I didn't apply to any school that didn't emphasize its commitment to interdisciplinary study.

Well, my advice is based on the assumption that you--general you--are living in Los Angeles for 5-7 years, not just attending UCLA. Ergo, you might want to live like a resident and not like a temporary guest. There's a reason why I and others mention traffic and having a car--we live here. We know what it's like to call this place home.

Awesome. Good luck!

How disappointing for you both. {{hugs}}

Thanks for the book recs! I made my way into foodways through material culture (I am a geek for early to mid-century kitchen gadgets and cookbooks), so I'm still looking around for which scholars are incorporating the rest of my interests.